


Paths of the Heart

by Ramzes



Series: In the Chaos of a World [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2018-11-22 14:59:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11382570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramzes/pseuds/Ramzes
Summary: AU. An abandoned wife and then an unwanted one, a queen without power, a mother without children – Elia Martell was all that people said, and more.





	1. Waiting

Winter persisted and Elia's heart's wish had yet to come true. Moons went by and turned to years. Years of covert looks and silent appraisals, and whispers that House Baratheon had lost its dynasty before it even started it. Robert Baratheon had doomed it by taking this frail apparition, Rhaegar Targaryen's leftovers, to be his wife and queen. Of course she would never give him a child. She had given all she had in her to the husband who had deemed it not enough. Such were the talks at King's Landing and anywhere the court went. Elia pretended not to hear. Words were wind… but not really. They had the power to hurt, as she had first discovered at Harrenhall.

"Do you want me to take care of the matter?" her lord husband asked her outright when one night he caught her weeping, and she shook her head.

"I don't want anyone punished for being stupid," she said. _For being right._

He looked at her curiously. "How did you manage to stand it?" he asked. "They must have been talking this way about you since you were born."

"Starting with my brother," Elia confirmed. "When he was told that he had a sister, he assured his foster father that I would soon die."

His horrified expression made her laugh. "Well, he did. And I never paid any attention to people's talks. I never knew any state but being of frail health."

Except for Harrenhall. Except for Aegon's birth. The first time, she had felt as if she had gathered all the exhaustion in the world after the journey made so soon after she rose from her sickbed to be immediately confronted with the inconveniences of the first moons of a new blessed state that had felt anything but; the second, she had truly thought she had died and then wished she had. It was then that words had gained the might to hurt her. As they did now. An abandoned wife and then an unwanted one, a queen without power, a mother without children – she was all that people said, and more. Sometimes, she wondered if the very fever of her longing for a child prevented her from conceiving it. Might it be that she had insulted the Seven with desiring so strongly? Would they punish her forever with the sight of an empty nursery, a missing cradle, and listening to the water that the pale winter sun sometimes managed to melt somewhat, so it dripped slowly and persistently down walls and windows?

At King's Landing, she felt Jon Arryn's eyes on her, careful not to be obvious now. But for how long _? Wait a little,_ Elia wanted to say. _Wait. I am still weak, I experience headaches almost every day, dizziness, weakness in my limbs… I don't need you or anyone else to tell me what we agreed upon. What my duty is because I was born a woman…_

At least her husband would not say anything. For now. Elia ground her teeth and welcomed his nightly visits with all she had, trying to pretend that she enjoyed it because he wanted to make it nice for her. But the tears she had sustained at Mariah's birth made every encounter painful. It mattered not. Not if it gave her a child. And it didn't.

Finally, the spring arrived, timid and glorious. Heaps of snow turned to grey rivers flooding the Red Keep, King's Landing, and the world, and yet hope was near. One day, Ashara showed Elia a snowdrop, small and bold in the snow. Further hope came with pale green buds finding their way to the branches of the dark trees and then opening in a glorious display of freshness.

And blossomed more yet when Elia knew for sure that the babe she had longed for these two endless years would arrive soon.

"You see?" Ashara would ask. "I told you that your womb would open with spring. You're the princess of Dorne. A princess of summer. You cannot bloom in winter."

Winter has brought her her first three children and Elia could never regret it, no matter how much the separation hurt. And still, as her new babe grew, she felt a sense of something that she could only call peace. She was about to fulfill her duty. She was not useless. She would have a child to love and care for and this time, she would take her own life before letting anyone take them from her. A new chance. And she knew that her other children were loved and well-cared for. It rarely happened that a week went by without ravens flying both ways between King's Landing and Sunspear.

"Is it… painful?" Robert asked, watching in awe as the babe kicked. Unfortunately, Elia was so thin that the movements were quite visible for everyone around… or was it fortunately? She did not mind flaunting her state in front of all those who had already written her off.

"No," she said and smiled. "It's reassuring, actually."

"But not dangerous?" he insisted. "Both the babe and you?"

She felt another smile spreading across her face. Despite his small signs of attention and the pelts he loaded down on her – when he had found another whore, most often, - despite the increasing sway she was finally allowed to hold, to Tywin Lannister's great chagrin, Robert had never said that he cared about her. Never.

"We're fine," she assured him. "We'll be both fine."

She told herself this as she went through the hard and yes, sometimes painful changes her state forced on her. As she oversaw the preparations for the birth, from the room to the lack of flowers because they made her gag when labouring. As the child dropped low and the memories of her past childbirths started haunting her nights when she could not ward them off. But when the actual day of the birth came, she could no longer deny to herself that it was not truth but wish. A whim of the Mother. A whim of the Stranger. She could almost feel them both lean against her and wage their claims… but then a tiny wail interrupted their fight.

A newborn's scream!

 _Just once more,_ she thought as she cradled her son. _I have to go through this just once more, and then I'll be free._ And as the bells of Baelor's Sept joyously announced the arrival of Edric Baratheon, she held him in her tired arms and wept for the children she had lost.

 


	2. Back to Undesired Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented!

The first look at the boy made Elia's breath catch. For a moment, she truly thought that Rhaegar had come back from the dead. This was what he had looked like, at their first meeting in Dorne all those years ago when she had been a girl of thirteen and he had barely turned eleven. Fair hair, purple eyes, this look of almost unbearable intensiveness… Was this how Aegon would look like when he reached this boy's age? He was terribly gaunt, his facial features sharp, with not a trace of Rhaegar's softness or dreaminess and when he looked at her, she knew that he blamed her.

"Bow to Her Grace," the Kingsguard boomed.

Viserys Targaryen did not move.

"Stop! Do not!" Elia said sharply but it was too late. Ser Mandon Moore had already pushed the boy to his knees, as always so devoted to his duty that it did not occur to him that the ones he served might see this duty differently. She cast the man from the Vale a look that could make a lion shake in shame but had no effect on a creature made of stone. Looking at the cuts and scrapes covering the boy, she wondered how many of those had been received by the Kingsguard's hands. Mandon Moore had been the man who had gone to the harbour to receive the gift that a few Tyroshi maesters had sent her husband and she had had the occasion to see his penchant for cruelty more than once.

"I am sorry," she said as her onetime goodbrother rose. "You'll be taken to your chambers to rest for a while. Then, we may talk."

What they could talk about, she had no idea. He would be sent to the Wall first thing tomorrow, no matter how hard she was fighting her own conscience, trying to convince herself to try and beg her lord husband to be merciful. The truth was, Viserys Targaryen was a threat – a threat to her throne, a threat to Edric's inheritance and the babe she was carrying now, a threat to Aegon's freedom and perhaps his very life. The Wall was not what Elia would wish upon a child who had never done anything to her but that was the road leading to safety for everyone. Perhaps even Viserys himself.

He staggered to his feet and looked at her, the bruises on his face even darker because of his fair skin. His eyes went from her black eyes to her body.

And he spat at her.

Elia gasped and Ser Mandon raised his hand again. Robert strode towards them as well, his face thunderous.

"No!" Elia screamed but this time, even her voice, even the sight of her belly would not stop Robert and the hammer of a fist he raised.

"It was a mistake," Elia sighed later, as Magdeen helped her disrobe. "I should have expected this. King Aerys kept Viserys at his side most of the time and he was never fond of me. He was convinced that we Dornish were traitors to his House. And I confirmed it, in Viserys' eyes, by marrying Robert. I should have known."

"Why did you go to the throne room at all?" Magdeen asked. "If you were this uneasy? I know you were uneasy, Princess."

When they were alone, her Dornish attendants sometimes still called her with the style she had been born to. "I was afraid that my husband would do something dishonourable," Elia replied easily and Magdeen shifted her look away uneasily. "Something that would taint both of us. Something that he would regret."

The other Dornishwoman stared at her, as always surprised by her cool assessment of the man she had wed. "But Viserys Targaryen is still a boy. A child, almost. You thin the King would have-?!"

"I don't think," Elia replied wearily, without reproach but without delusions either. "He could have sent Viserys straight to the Wall and then forgot about him but only if he had not seen him. The moment he did, he saw only Rhaegar, as I knew he would."

She sat before her dressing table and stared at her reflection in the silver looking-glass. "Not the Rhaegar Targaryen whom he fought and defeated at the Trident. I don't think he even thinks of this Rhaegar much. No, when he looked at Viserys, he saw the Rhaegar who took something that he had considered his. It was this Rhaegar that he couldn't stand."

Magdeen stared at her, feeling rightly that her lady was talking to herself and not her. Elia reached for the ointment she used for her face and started rubbing it mechanically, thinking of this reminder of what her husband truly was, truly felt in his heart. Was Viserys' transgression this great as to deserve a lashing from Ser Mandon who took such delight in fulfilling this duty? Did Robert need to show so blatantly that he had to show everyone that despite being over the Stark girl – he was, Elia shared his bed often enough to know that there were no thoughts of Lyanna lurking there – he was not over being the fact that she had been taken from him? After all those years! The Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, a slave to his male pride.

Was this how her children would come to see her like? Like Viserys did? No, her father would not allow this. Her brothers. Yet as years went by, children grew up and formed mind of their own. Would they patch together the facts they had to form a conclusion that turned her into a bitter, angry, power-hungry woman who had happily betrayed their father's memory and forsaken them for a new husband, new children, and a throne? In the last few years as she had made peace with her past, she had slowly, without noticing turned almost complacent. Almost like a regular queen, regular lady wife when she was anything but.

"Are you angry?" Robert asked when he came to her chambers after the evening feast.

"No," Elia said wearily. "Just disappointed."

He looked ashamed. "I'm sorry I lost control, my lady. But no one can insult you so in my presence and expect to get away with it."

He looked so sincere that Elia marveled at his delusions. He likely truly believed he had done it for her. "How is he?" she asked. "I heard it took a while for him to regain consciousness."

Robert swore under his nose. "Bloody Varys," he said. "Yes, it took a while. He's staying here for a few days before he leaves for the Wall. But you can do whatever you like with the girl," he added. "Just not here."

Elia looked at him. At least he was trying to get back into her good graces. Just like Rhaegar, although she'd never tell him this. And she couldn't deny that his method was yielding better results than her first husband's. Rhaegar had ordered the same damned laurel for her, only made by sapphires. Elia had immediately given it away for one of her charities.

"Dorne," she said and he nodded.

"I am doing this for us, Elia," he said. "For Edric. And this one here," he added, nodding at her middle.

"Of course," she agreed listlessly.

From this day on, she started languishing again with renewed longing for her children.


	3. A Duty Done

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented, you keep this story alive!

The pain of childbirth was like winter storms – something that was well-known and had to be suffered, so it could be over. Elia knew it and was reconciled with it, walking in the garden in the soft autumn day and enjoying the golden and roan shades of the leaves, knowing that by the time she would be well enough to go outside again, the promise of an impending winter in a few months might have come to be. Or she might not be any more. This was a risk that could easily turn to reality for any woman in the birthing bed and for Elia of Dorne, it came almost like a surprise when it did not.

Far beneath, King's Landing was brimming with life and people, as if the sack had never taken place. People and horses, tinier than the ones Edric played with. Carts leaning this and that way to navigate the narrow streets… The incredible clash of colours from the fabrics in the open market was reflected even here, or so Elia thought, and she tried not to lose it from her sight as she clung to Ashara's hand as the pains shot through her faster, fiercer.

"Your Grace!" the old maester charged with walking by her, so no unexpected twist would find her without professional attendance said. "I must insist that you return to your chamber. It's good that you took some fresh air and I am far from thinking that unless there is a trouble clearly outlined, a woman should spend the last months on a bedrest but this is going too far! I am not doing this for the first time and…"

"Neither am I."

Elia did not think she had actually growled the words but the pain was getting too strong and although she liked the old man's quiet presence, something in the way he behaved as if she were bringing a son for Storm's End into the world angered her. Just like the first time, she disdained his behavior, as if she was a first time mother with no experience, the virgin bride his lord deserved, although he had actually delivered her third child by Rhaegar.

This thought brought her back to her senses. Maester Cressen might be treating her like the lady of Storm's End but he had done his best to assure that she and her babes would survive. Her midwives had had nothing but praise for him both times and still did now. She could not say the same about the Grand Maester who had thwarted the women all steps on the way. They had thwarted his orders in turn – and Elia and her babes had ended up alive. Barely. At least this one was not trying to murder her. She gripped Ashara's hand again because the pain was almost too much.

"Lady Baratheon is lucky to have you," she said when the pang was over.

"My lady did most of the work herself," Maester Cressen said neutrally but Elia wondered if, perhaps, he shared her dislike of her goodsister.

"I'll go to bed before the sun is down," she said by the way of excuse and he nodded.

"Do not be afraid, Your Grace," he said. "You've always managed before."

He did not say that over time and births, womb could go weak. Elia knew it but she refused to think about it. She preferred to remember how she had walked those same paths with Rhaenys toddling beside her and Aegon in his nursemaid's arms. It was now Edric's time to toddle but his attendants had taken him to another garden because if he saw his mother, he'd want to go with her. Sweet sadness filled her at remembering the pale kiss of happiness during the horror that had been this war. Yes, even then she had known a touch of that. "May I join you?" Rhaegar had asked just a day after his return when he had seen her and the children being prepared to go out in the harsh winter wind.

"No," she had replied coolly and she had even felt a flicker of satisfaction at the look of rejection that played across his face. It had been his turn now to know what feeling unwanted was.

All these things had led her to this. This garden, this renewed fight between the Mother and the Stranger over her and a new babe. This new husband who had gone hunting as soon as she had gone into labour, like Rhaegar had gone to his library to consult his precious old parchments about the best way he could use her still unborn children. Had things changed this much indeed?

She would like to have her chamber darker since bright light hurt her eyes but the maesters and midwives needed to see what they were doing. She screamed herself hoarse and just when she thought she couldn't take it any more, that she'd die right now from pain and exhaustion, the pain… stopped. Panic settled in because she knew it could not be right and she started pushing desperately despite not having any urge, even before a pandemonium broke out and men and women started shouting at her to push, their white faces telling her that whatever was going on, it was far worse than she realized. The strain became unbearable in the absence of an urge to help the babe along and she felt something tugging and snapping. Ashara hissed in pain and weeks later, she would still sport the bruises of Elia's fingers. In the crashing waves of pain and fear, someone yelled that she had a son. Something blue and small flashed before her eyes as the midwife was hurrying away and Elia tried to rise, squinting in the fierce firelight that turned her bedchamber into a pyre. She would not have believed that there was no fire at all, no ghostly hands stealing from the shadows to grasp her newborn. "He's purple! This isn't normal!"

"He's had it a little hard, my lady, that's all. It's all normal…"

"Don't give me this nonsense, I've had four children and I know!"

But as hard as she tried, she could not rise and the mere touch of a hand against her shoulder made her fall back as consciousness drifted away moments before her son's first cry filled the chamber with relief and promise.

A week later, her lord husband entered her bedchamber where she lay with the child at her breast. Her milk was taking unusually long time to come in and she was not experiencing the usual engorgement so she suspected that this one would have a wetnurse but still, she'd make an effort for a few more days. He was already taking suck energetically from the girl and Elia was so tired of trying to do the things the world and one husband or another thought she should. The thought of not rising at night with a hungry babe was surprisingly pleasing.

"How are you feeling today?"

"Fine," Elia said curtly.

She knew she should have shown him the new cover made by the pelt he had brought her three days ago. Thank him again. Or even talk about their new son. But she did not want to. She just wanted to be with her babe. No conversations, no consideration of another person. She wouldn't have minded if he though her more ill than she, in fact, was, but of course he had talked to the maesters. He squirmed in his seat and she could say he wanted to talk to her. Of course, he accepted that she'd be eager to listen, like Rhaegar had in the aftermath of the birth that had almost claimed her life. He had not stopped prattling on for weeks, adding the fear that he was going mad like his father to her worries as she had wondered if she would ever be able to reach the privy unassisted. Why, he had talked to her about Aegon's great destiny the very day he had abandoned her. Never once stopping to think that perhaps she did not wish to listen. Was Robert going to repeat the experience? Couldn't you just stay with your latest whore and left me alone with my son, she wondered. Your part in bringing him to this world amounted to a roll between the sheets, not exactly an unpleasant experience for you. Do you have to deny me my time to recover after all the work I put forth?

"How do you wish to name him?" he suddenly asked and this simple question shook her to her core with its very unexpectedness. Never before had she been deemed worthy of being consulted, ever since she had opened her eyes to the news that her daughter had already been given the name of the queen all of Dorne hated.

"I… I don't know," she stuttered.

He pushed a goblet at her, clearly taking her sudden pallor the wrong way, and shrugged apologetically when she indicated that with the child in her arms, she could not take it.

"I was thinking of Alric," he said, conversationally. "Unless you mind?"

Mind? He was giving her a gift beyond all others, a child named after her own father. She had never expected to have this, since the moment she had been told that she would wed the Prince of Dragonstone. Her eyes welled up but she willed the tears back. And then she realized why he had wished to name this son after her father, instead of waiting for a new one and name this after his own. "There will be no more children for me, won't it?" she asked, a little taken aback at her own composure. It was one thing to be unwilling to have more; to be unable to, quite another. But she had already heard this once, had she not?

"The maesters are not sure," Robert said. "But they're unanimous that if you do, it might bring your death forth. Your womb has started failing you even as he was being born… the Seven must have been smiling upon us for both of you to be unharmed."

Elia had suspected something like this. Labour pains were not supposed to stop all of a sudden with the babe still inside. Still, to hear it confirmed brought a chill to her – and profound gratitude.

"You did well," Robert said. "Two healthy boys. What more could a king want? In all honesty, I feel a little relieved knowing that I am not risking your life when I come to you."

Now, this was the real surprise. Elia stared at him, open-mouthed. He intended to keep coming to her? She had taken it for granted that once she had given him the right number of children, he would be happy not to lose time with her. And if she was a little regretful because after the injuries sustained after Aegon and Mariah's births had finally healed, she had come to enjoy the act somewhat and he would not let her have a lover – well, she had thought that it was just one of the things she had to bear. It had never occurred to her to ask him what he wanted. She had just assumed that she knew. "If you weren't my lady wife, I would have taken you as a mistress," he had told her once and while she had accepted it for the compliment it had been, she now realized that perhaps he had meant it literally. The possibility of him desiring her should have crossed her mind long ago, given his appetites of the sort for any woman that crossed his way, yet somehow it had not.

"You did well," he said again. "When… when you're well enough and he has grown, we'll make a progress to show them to the south." He paused. 'It will finish in Dorne where we will attend Lady Ashara's wedding," he said and this time, Elia's tears would not be held back.


	4. A Golden Peach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for everyone who commented, your interest is an inspiration!

The sun turned the soft red and orange hues of the peach into a veritable feast to the eyes, deepening and intensifying them. To Elia's eye, the first rows of trees in the orchard grove looked like an explosion of ten radiant suns of fire and gold. She felt like spurring her mare this way and raise her hand to catch one of the fruits, feel its ripe skin split and the sweet juice stain her fingers, sticky and wondrous. Without looking back, she knew that Edric was itching to do the same thing. In fact, she was almost sure she could hear his voice begging his father to take him there, and she wondered if Robert regretted taking the child before him in the saddle, or he would actually cave and ride forth to steal from the orchard. A King and a thief all in one. She smiled to herself and then scowled when they actually rode straight for the peaches. Her scowl deepened when, at returning, Robert avoided looking at her. He knew that he had disgruntled her but of course, he had been unable to stop himself. Sometimes, Elia felt like she had three children to discipline! Robert did no worse job with reining his impulses in than Edric but that was not exactly a great compliment.

"Are you angry with us?" he asked, still not quite looking at her. The juice gleamed on his fingers, as alive and sticky as Elia had imagined it.

"No," she replied coolly and truthfully. She was not angry with them. With _him_ , though…

"We brought you a peach, Mama!" Edric chimed in and somehow, taking the fruit from his hand, Elia could not even stay properly angry with Robert.

"Take him to the wheelhouse," she said, recognizing that her son was about to fall asleep right there, atop the horse.

She did not expect for Robert to return and was, in fact, engrossed in a conversation with Magdeen Dalt when he came back. Magdeen steered her horse aside.

"Elia," he said. "You can't be really angry, can you? These are things that are common for a royal progress. In fact, it's a cause for surprise if any lands near the road remain unplundered. We have more than five thousand people to feed."

"This doesn't make it fine," she replied levelly. "In fact, it only says something about our abilities. That they're quite limited! There are ways to feed our retainers without robbing the people who have been tending all this blind. Have you ever thought of arranging temporary markets in certain points along the road? I can't believe your brother had not thought of this."

At least he had the decency to look ashamed. "He might have mentioned something. In fact, I think he did, in a letter, but it was so boring, as usual, that I didn't quite pay attention."

Now, she became truly angry. Didn't quite pay attention? Didn't quite _pay attention_? She kept her silence because antagonizing him would achieve nothing right now but she truly and selfishly wished that Jon Arryn were here. The man was probably relieved to be doing his duties capably and in peace in King's Landing, without having to mind and entertain Robert. A little vicious part of her whispered that the Lord of the Vale simply got his just desserts for bringing Robert up the way he had. But then, reality settled in. While Jon Arryn could have undoubtedly done a better job, he had not planted the seeds. They had been there, just like her frailness had been instilled in her from the day of her birth a month too early. And if Robert accepted her as she was, well, she owed him the courtesy to do the same, did she not? At least he had never dragged her to a tourney to show her off and then humiliate her in front of the entire realm.

Rhaegar again! Would she never be free of him? He had only been in her life for three years, half of the first two to from Summerhall or hidden in his library and the third one with his Northerner who fancied herself a woman. She had done her best to forget about him and yet he refused to stay with the Stranger where he belonged. Perhaps it was her desire to have sent him back there personally that brought him back! Even in the beauty of the summer day, in a landscape not so different from her own, her hatred of him rose as high as ever. Sometimes, she managed to forget about him but forgive him about becoming the reason for having their children taken from her, depriving their son from his throne through his stupidity – never!

She would never be free of the poison of the past.

"I will show you how it is done before the next progress," she said, wondering with a sickening feeling how much of her desire to turn him into a better man, a better king was pure striving to make Rhaegar sink into further oblivion, further unfavourable comparisons. For him, the songs bards made about the brave warrior King who had fought against injustice and saved the beautiful and wronged Princess to make her his cherished Queen might have been punishment enough – but not to Elia. Never her. No matter how well Robert treated her. No matter how beloved she was by smallfolk and court alike – which was, of course, a reflection of her King's own attitude to her. Not as long as her heart remained torn between the children from her two marriages and the bitter realization that Edric could never bloom without Aegon being squashed into anonymity.

* * *

The moment she set eyes on her goodsister, Elia knew that Cersei had not forgotten or forgiven anything. Behind this serene, welcoming smile, there was hatred that could not be mistaken. Of course, Elia did not think there was anything to forgive. It was not her father who had tried to kill Cersei repeatedly. It was not her who had dealt Cersei's best friend an unforgivable offence – that was, if Cersei even had a best friend at all. Elia thought her too self-absorbed for this.

She did not miss the way the younger woman's eyes kept turning to Robert as they walked through the gates, and the amount of her vexation was surprising to her. Cersei was practically ripping the clothes off him! _And they call us Dornish lewd._ Elia's mother would have smiled and waved it off, declaring that she could not blame Cersei for having the good taste to be fascinated with Arianne's own husband; Elia though, just half the woman that her mother had been, toyed with the idea of offering her goodsister a handkerchief to wipe her saliva with. But then, she would look as irate as disgruntled as she was. Worse, Robert would find it amusing and his brother would _not_ appreciate the humour or understand that it was at Elia's expense and not his own.

Still, even with her being all dignified, Lady Baratheon's behavior was blatant enough to make both her husband and brother glare at her. Elia gave a mental shrug. As far as Robert was not taking part – like, staring at Cersei openly which he would have done if she and Lord Stannis had been absent, - it was no concern of hers. Instead, she stared at the massive building and marveled at just how much it fit Robert – impressive, noticeable from afar, a force to be reckoned with – and still it did not fit him at all. Not ostentatious enough. Not comfortable for ships. She stole a look at Cersei and realized why the other woman's bitterness had grown even more. As rich as the castle was, it was no background to make her shine. And it was no background for Robert either. Not enough people to see and love him. But the Eyrie was said to be even more isolated, yet Robert had loved it there. Elia wished that she could see the Eyrie, understand what drew him so. She almost turned back to tell him so but kept her manners and instead, made a nice comment about the castle to Lord Stannis who did not quite huff but did not reply in kind. She could not help but notice how plain he looked now, with Robert near. Her husband had this way to dwarf everyone in his vicinity, his brother included. Still, at least Cersei could have acted more like a woman grown and not a tavern wench falling for the first pair of nice broad shoulders coming around! _Did I look like this when Rhaegar passed me by to crown Lyanna Stark,_ Elia wondered. Humiliation was never a pretty sight.

She smiled when she saw the heir of Storm's End. Although with his father's colouring, young Steffon had taken his mother's finely chiseled features and all the charm Robert must have possessed at his age. Within minutes, he and Edric were already fast friends which delighted her – especially when she saw that it did not delight Steffon's mother at all. Smiling, she refused Cersei's offer to have Edric shown to his chamber – he was not _this_ tired. Then, she kept herself occupied with the polite conversation flowing around, all the while paying notice of how people reacted to Robert. It was as if the sun had come. Tears in the eyes. Beaming faces. This did not surprise her at all. Her lord husband had this way of making everyone feel important, although Elia knew for a fact that he had not given any of them much of a thought in years. But then, why not? When he rose and looked at her, suggesting with a slight wink that they retired, even she smiled back before she could give the suggestion a conscious thought, although she knew that he had spent last night with the daughter, or was she niece, to the lord in whose castle they had stayed.

"I like it here," she said after a while, snuggled against him in the oak bed that was big enough for them to lie without touching after sex. "It's so… elemental."

His laughter boomed in the quiet bedchamber, overcoming the soft sound of crashing waves coming through the windows. "Elemental, eh?" he said. "Like me, you mean?"

Elia smiled without answering. "I am not insulted," he said good-naturedly. "I _am_ elemental and you, of all people, should know this. So, do you think we would have been happy here?"

"No," she answered promptly and he whistled.

"You don't say! I had no idea how well off I was with this quiet mouse of a wife who did her best not to vex me."

Now, she laughed. "No, really," she insisted. "Do you think your lord father would have ever considered me for you? I was too old and unhealthy. He would have settled for someone young and hale."

"It didn't work out so well when I tried this, did it?" There was still a touch of bitterness in his voice. And then, he touched her cheek with uncharacteristic clumsiness. "Although I'm afraid it worked far worse for you than it did for me. I, for one, am completely pleased with the situation."

Right now, so was Elia. Right now. She stayed silent, snuggled in his arms, at peace with herself and the world. Outside, the sea sang softly, powerfully, and soothingly.

 


	5. The Bitter Taste of Sweetness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented and sorry for kind of pushing this story at the backburner for a while!

"How much more do we have to go?"

Elia wanted to block out the voice of her lady in-waiting – by now, she could not tell their tones apart since they have all complained that the road was too uneven, the peaks too high, and the wind too cold. Why, someone had even wondered if they had gotten the path wrong, despite the fact that the track was clearly a road, albeit a faint and steep one. Their reasoning? Well, it was cold here and Dorne was known to be the hottest place in Westeros.

"You should see the desert," Magdeen Dalt had put in, helpfully. "It's the hottest place in the world when the sun shines but when night descend, one's skin turns to ice, this is how cold it is."

Elia had left her to it, the other ladies suddenly being all curiosity. Robert who rode next to her had also been interested, declaring that he had to see this hottest-coldest place, to everyone's dismay. And now Edric, his face a white blur against the thick hat, was leaning precariously from Ser Arthur's arms to inspect the soil beneath; amused, Elia saw that the Sword of the Morning really looked ill at ease. She had not seen this since he had been squire at Sunspear and she, filling up for her mother at public functions already.

"What are you looking for?" the knight asked. "Can I not bring it to you?"

There was a definite plea in his voice. Elia would have grinned, had her son not chosen the moment to make another attempt to test how low he could go without slipping off.

"Just one more time, and you're going with your father," she warned. This high in the Red Mountains, no wheelhouse could pass, so she could not threaten to send him there. "Yes," she added, giving Robert a pointed look, although this time, it was not him that Edric was emulating.

"Can't he go with the King now?" Arthur asked hopefully and the boy stood very unmoving, all cooperation all of a sudden. He knew that should his father not be in the right mood, he'd spend the rest of the journey as good as tied to the saddle.

"So, what are you looking for?" Elia asked after a while.

"The bones," Edric said readily. "This is the Road of Bones, is it not?"

"No," Elia replied, wondering what was so fascinating about bones. All boys seemed fascinated with them.

"We're at the last stretch of the road," Arthur announced. "Just this peak, and it's all downwards from there on."

"It was about time," Robert muttered.

The higher they went, the colder the wind became. They were the only travelers braving the road, save for the few herds of goats, with the goatherds looking at them with their palms over their eyes. They had long left beneath all kinds of bushes but now, even the grass turned sparse. It was all stones and rocks, rocks and stones, turned fiery by the rough caress of the sun that could not get the travelers warm despite its brilliance. All in all, there was little to be cherished. The rock massifs framing the path from both sides hid every view. But Elia, Arthur, Magdeen, and the rest of them could not stop looking at the landscape and each other, their smiles wide and cheerful, and a little sentimental. They were home now!

"Here we are," Arthur announced when they negotiated the last few steps and suddenly, a valley lay beneath them, a valley framed by trees and white stones, and gleaming springs, and at their left, Castle Wyl opened to pour out the welcoming party.

"Dorne," Elia breathed. "I am home."

She felt Robert's sharp gaze on her but fortunately, he did not say a thing.

* * *

Elia had no words to describe how happy she felt. And how scared. Each step of the way made her fear grow, curl in her chest like a growing ball that stopped her from breathing. When she saw the walls of Sunspear, for a moment she wanted to turn back and run.

A sea of familiar faces surrounded her – faces of people she loved, hated,had grown up with, had had them teach her. The faces of Sunspear, the faces of the Dorne she loved. For a long time, she stood clinging to her father, unwilling to ever let go, feeling the loss of her mother all of a sudden, as acute as it had been in the very first days when she had received the tidings of the Princess of Dorne's death. But when she looked at the great hall, changed to what could only be Doran's liking, and then Doran himself, the sorrow went away, replaced by the joy of seeing him, all of them. Oberyn grinned and claimed that it had been about time for her to come back.

"As if it was ever up to me… " Elia hissed under her breath but her brother did not look abashed at all.

"I'd say it was quite up to you," he replied just as quietly. "He does what you want of him, does he not? If he did not wish to grant you this visit, you would have stayed behind. Poor health and so on."

Elia was about to protest when she realized that Oberyn was right. Since Robert would not – could not, in fact – give her her heart's desire, she had been quite blind to the fact that over time, he had started giving her pretty much anything else she wanted. The problem was that she rarely wanted anything. Out of unwillingness to come across as grasping? Out of fear to be refused? Now, especially, under Oberyn's shrewd eyes, she found no answer at all.

Her brother laughed. "If you could only see your face!" he said and then turned serious. "At least this one is a real man," he said. "And he cares about you. Ashara says so and if you forgive me for saying so, on this matter I trust her way more than I do you."

The sudden, unexpected relief in her chest only lasted for a few beats of the heart. "You have not brought the children along," she said.

"No," Oberyn said. "They're at the Water Gardens. We decided to give you a first meeting that is more unofficial."

_And not provoking Robert's wrath,_ was what he left unsaid. Elia was immensely grateful. If she could avoid the meeting between her children and Robert altogether, she would do so without thinking twice. As much as her lord husband's wrath towards all things Targaryen had faded, her children were not just Targaryen but Rhaegar's. Not that he would do something to them. In fact, she was sure that he would not. But with the true extent of her hatred for Rhaegar not known to anyone, how could she presume to know how far Robert's feelings went?

"Thank you," she said simply.

She decided to head for the Water Gardens first thing in the morning.

* * *

Robert came with her. She had not wanted him to but for the first time since they had wed, he told her a firm no – and she felt her onetime fear of him come back in full force, so she dared not insist. In fact, she took care to not look at him too often, lest he deciphered her feelings.

The cavalcade was a small one but the royal banners that had literally never flown in Dorne, the ones with the crowned stag, attracted even more notice than the Martell ones. It was clear who was riding along the coast and travelers made way, men bowed and women raised their children. Fishermen raised their oars from the shoals before going on on their way. Acclaims washed all over the group and Elia enjoyed the feeling of being the one cheered on, much more than the man riding next to her.

"Long live Queen Elia, Arianne's daughter!" was the refrain repeated most often and Elia was touched that these rough fishermen, washerwomen, goatherds, and traders remembered the peace and prosperity that her mother had given them. Mellario also got her fair share of acclaims but the one people shouted themselves hoarse about was Elia's father. She watched him, his broad smile and the sadness that so few could see. He had received such acclaims so many times in the past, at Arianne's side or on his own, and abruptly Elia wondered how many years it would take Doran to emerge from their parents' shadows.

"They are obstinate ones, are they not?" Robert marked. With his faultless intuition about a crowd's mood, he could not have failed to hear that out of everyone, he was the one who was least acclaimed. Even Edric received more cheers. But Edric was Dornish. Half-Dornish.

"Very," Elia confirmed, relieved that he did not look annoyed but curious. Generally, Dorne had little love for kings or stormlanders and Robert was both. Whatever applause he received, it was because of Elia and he knew it.

"It's interesting to be the man accompanying you," he said and she laughed.

"You're incorrigible, my lord," she said.

"That I am," he confirmed proudly and Elia allowed herself to cope that everything would go smoothly. What did she have to fear, in fact?

The white walls of the Water Garden rose in view and when Elia rode in, the feeling that she was stepping back in the past was overwhelming. Nothing seemed to have changed, even the carved wings of the doors leading to the galleries.

The shouts from the pools could be heard from the very walls. Edric got so excited that he tried to jump from his pony immediately and squirmed so much in his impatience to get down that he actually impeded the groom's attempt to take him down. Robert got a firm grip on him the moment his feet touched the ground because else, Edric would have bolted off to look for the children. Sometimes, her son's need of children his age scared Elia; other times, it filled her with pride and hope. It was a good thing for a future king to be beloved.

Perhaps Edric's friendliness would prove useful right now. From the letters she received regularly, Elia knew that her two daughters were just as friendly and open as Edric. Aegon, not so much.

"Are these the pools of children, Mama?" Edric asked impatiently as he tripped to keep pace with his father. Elia smiled at his attempt to emulate Robert's stride with his too short feet.

"Yes," she said.

"Why don't the two of you go right over there while I take a stroll?" Robert suggested in a burst of good will. He would never apologize for the harsh words from last night but Elia recognized an attempt to make things right when she saw one.

Only, when she stopped at the edge of the pools, she once again felt that things would never get right. Edric whooped with delight and immediately started stripping to join the other children but Elia did not hear a word of his chatter. The story of the first Daenerys came to her mind, how one day, at these same pools, she could not tell the highborn children from the lowborn. With their hair wet, concealing its coulour, and their faces split in two by their wide smile, Elia could not tell her own children from everyone else. She tried and tried, and failed and failed, and the water splashing in all directions thankfully concealed the tears running down her cheeks.

 


	6. Cold Amidst the Land of Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented!

At the first look at her children, Elia felt that now, she could tell them apart from everyone. She took them in hungrily, with eagerness that surprised it with its visceral depth. She had not known that she had the _capacity_ for feeling it so strongly.

Rhaenys, dark-haired and thoughtful. Always polite, always calling her my lady or Your Grace and still, sometimes Elia caught her daughter watching her when she thought Elia wasn't looking. These eyes were narrowed, intent, as if they were trying to call back something forgotten, long gone away. An escaping memory? Elia hoped so much that this was it. Out of the three, Rhaenys was the only one who might have some recollection of her, as vague as it might be.

Aegon, his eyes the same colour as Rhaegar's, but his temper so much livelier. He called her Lady Mother easier but these were just words. He was curious about her as he would have been if the First Men had come back to life but the idea of a real mother, his mother, looked as about as real to him as they were. He could have just called her Lady No One, to the same effect.

Mariah, as quick as a wave chasing another, always chattering about the Water Gardens and her friends and always embroiled in bold adventures, the last one almost including a fracture of her hand as she was called, as she explained, by a bird in a tree to talk some. An Oberyn in the making, in this respect. As curious about Elia and King's Landing as she could be and yet even her easy acceptance did not bring uninhibited joy in Elia's soul. "Were you there when I was born, Lady Mother?" Mariah asked innocently one day and Elia almost wept, although at Mariah's age, she could not expect of her to understand, not when her daughter only knew what a mother was by watching other children's mothers. Or Elia with her younger children. "Are you sure you are both our mother and Edric's mother?" she asked more than once.

"Yes," Elia would answer each time, although her time in the Water Gardens mercilessly revealed the hollowness of such assurances. It was not her to whom her children ran for questions and pleas; it was not her who they waited every night to come to their rooms and say goodnight. Somewhat to her discontent, they were entrusted to the care of her father's paramour. Elia had known Lady Sareena since her own birth and would have had difficulties finding someone who was better prepared for the task but still, it rankled to actually see what she already knew in paper – that her children were being raised not in the heart of the court at Sunspear but rather in the outskirts.

"We decided that it would be better not to bring them into too much to the people's notice," her father said when she shared these thoughts with him. "And it would be better if they don't get any disagreeable ideas about their own standing. As much as I hate this fact, Elia, they aren't close to even Arianne and Quentyn in rank."

 _I hate it, too,_ Elia thought. _I hate it, too._

"Why don't they live with us?" Edric asked her one day when she had come to check on his progress with his lessons.

"Because they have to live here," she replied, grateful that he was young enough not to ask more questions.

"But Father is the King. If I ask him…"

"Don't!" Elia said hurriedly, imagining just how it would play out. For the last few weeks, her relationship with Robert had been increasingly tense. Oberyn claimed that her husband was the perfect companion and Elia did not doubt that Robert was truly this – to Oberyn. Not her. He spent much of his time traveling around Dorne and hunting with her brother who wished to show him around, thus giving Elia the time to be with her children. But when Robert was here, it was all courtesy, stilted questions about how she felt, and the same careful distance that she remembered from the time they had first wed. He would not look at her even as he addressed her. As great time as he had in Dorne, he could not wait to leave. Elia dearly wished that he would find a woman to keep him in good cheers in the meantime but alas, he seemed to have grasped that despite Dorne's repute in such matters and her father and brother living with paramours openly, it would not be looked upon kindly. Not unless he was discreet, which at the moment was impossible for him. Or perhaps he truly did not care about a mistress – he was busy being angry with his lady wife.

Not that he was rude or even impatient with her children, far from it. But he clearly felt awkward around them, losing all his powerful charm and making them awkward around him in return. All the children in the pools adored him – all but hers. And he, who liked children, had no way with hers.

How wrong she had been in her expectations! She had been fearful of what he would do if Lady Lyanna's son with Rhaegar came in his view but she had been wrong. She had witnessed the scene. Robert had _liked_ the boy. "By the Seven!" he had boomed. "Just a tad taller and a year older, and you'll be the very image of Ned when I first met him."

To her husband, Jon Sand was Eddard Stark's nephew, little Daenerys was just little, while Elia's children were _Rhaegar's_ children, clearly, and any hope that she might have held to persuade him to let them visit the royal court slowly faded.

"Have you ever regretted taking my siblings from their mothers?" she asked her father one day as they sat at the terrace watching the children play in the pools. Elia had moved into the sunlight that she had missed so and her youngest was sleeping contentedly in her lap as her father had drawn his chair back in the shadows.

Her question made Alric gave her a careful look. He was in no hurry to answer but when he did, there was no hesitance in his words. "Never. Even when one of their mothers had some belated regrets and wanted to change the arrangement, I never doubted that I did the right thing by my children. As long as your mother was ready to accept them in our household, I would never let them be tossed this and that way between their mothers and me. They had a place already and I wasn't about to change it or waste time tending to their mothers' irrational wants."

Elia had always known that her father was a man of few scruples but to hear it confirmed was not easy. And this was with him softening it as much as possible because he knew what she was truly asking, of course…

"You should go out with your husband more," her father's paramour, Lady Sareena, told her as they looked through the casket of rubies that Elia would gift to Ashara on the case of her wedding. "Don't waste everything that you have achieved so far."

Things were headed in a familiar direction, Elia realized with despair. The rumours about the deficiencies in her marriage were already abounding, just like they had after Harrehnall.

"It'll be such a pity," Magdeen chimed in. "The King was so taken with you. You should be careful, else you can easily find yourself back to where you were in the beginning."

But it was not her, it was Robert who was bringing them back to the beginning. Being petty. Clearly expecting his share of affection and attention, as if he had to compete with three children under ten. _I married an overgrown child,_ Elia thought bitterly but of course, she had no good choice. As much as it pained her, she had to face reality: soon, they would leave here and the children would be lost to her. Robert would be her reality. It would be truly unwise to cut the ties of affection and besides, it would serve no purpose at all, so while she did not stop showing her interest in the children's everyday life in any way she could, she started accompanying Robert as he rode and appeared at his side when he made his visits to the principal Houses of Dorne. But her heart was not in it and he could feel it, so the stilted courtesy between the two of them did not change.

Only at Ashara's wedding, the ice melted.

It was a glorious event. Starfall shone, its walls as white as they must have been thousands of years ago, when it had been constructed, the Torrentine was overflowing with boats transporting esteemed guests and Ashara was truly the most glamorous bride Elia had ever seen in her life. "I hope you're very happy," Elia whispered as she kissed her friend's cheek. When she turned, Robert was staring at her. On his face, there was a look most peculiar.

"Did you wanted to add, _Be happy for both of us?_ " he asked. "Because you aren't?"

"No," Elia replied honestly because she had not been thinking about herself at all. But her lord husband seemed to take this the wrong way because he smiled.

"I'm glad to hear it."

Not far from them, young Allyria Dayne was showing Starfall to Elia's children and Elia smiled at the sight of them united in their curiosity. Rivers and pools, swimming and sands, and highborn weddings – these were the things that brought children together. She dreaded the day when they would realize what kept them apart.

 


	7. Road Back and Road New

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long delay. As always, thanks to everyone who commented - special thanks to AIsfofAwesomeOfCourse for the ask last night! Here I am, having sat down with the intention to write a Vale chapter. Pity that my hand didn't get the meme…

"Are you angry with me?" Robert asked when the Red Moutains were behind them.

Elia looked up from her embroidery. He was awaiting her answer eagerly – anxiously, some would say. The fear and pale expectance on his face angered her all of a sudden. He looked like a little boy – like Edric when he had done something that he knew he shouldn't have and hoped for forgiveness. _I am not your mother,_ she thought even as she gave him the answer he expected. "I'm not, Your Grace."

"Don't call me this!"

Well, perhaps not quite the answer he had expected… and Elia had known it even while saying the words. She did not feel like giving him the reply that would ease his conscience. By now, she knew his ways: he'd have her say what he wanted to hear, and then he'd pretend that she meant it, which in turn would force her to behave as if she did until one day, the _if_ would disappear. Such was the power of his charm. She knew it but it still worked on her in a way Rhaegar's maturity and appellations to her political, reasonable, grown up side had not. Surprising, wasn't it? Elia had always took pride in her rationality.

"Why should I not?" she asked, watchful for the effect Madgeen and the rest of them insisted that she had on Robert.

She was looking for it and perhaps that was why she saw it: the sudden, abject dejectedness, the regret of someone knowing that they had done something wrong. Had it been there before? When he had returned after visiting whores? When he had gone over her expressed wishes? Although, come to think of it, she could not remember this having taken place anytime recently.

"Because I'm Robert," he said.

"Indeed," she agreed coolly, staring out of the window and wondering why she was doing this. Being sharp without a reason was not like her. It was not like her even when she was provoked. But this visit to Dorne had done something to her. The pain that her children did not love her and did not know her, that they were strangers to her and she was a stranger to them burned in her heart, as red as ever. She had needed help and support; instead, she had gotten petty jealousy over what? She still had no idea.

She had entered her homeland as a war prize claimed by the victor, owning everything she had to his mercy and conscious of this even as her new ease with her situation made her relaxed and far more unguarded; now, she left it heartbroken, crushed by the new separation and angry with her husband and still, as she saw the soft green of the Red Mountain spread beyond the window, as she opened it to let the intoxicating smell of freshness in, the shock of the change shook her almost physically, in a way that made Robert stare at her and her ladies share looks of concern. Her onetime pride, her onetime self-confidence broke to the surface burning their way through her heart and chest, grasped her by the throat, suffocating her like the steaming flesh of the men who had been dying in Aerys' throne room, all the way through the rebellion that had made her queen.

Finally, she was the old Elia again, the Dornish princess, the daughter of Arianne Martell – and Alric Gargalen. She had been reconciled, retiring, and scared all too long.

"I know your given name, my lord," she said, her voice colder than the desert at night. "I just thought you wanted me to respect the King. That was what you showed me while we were visiting the land of my birth, was it not? As a dutiful Queen, I'm just trying to guess your unspoken desires."

"I don't want you to guess what my desires are!" he bellowed.

Elia felt even at greater ease. Oh, he had wanted this and expected that she'd obey these desires; but she felt more confident when she did not have to. His roar did not disturb her at all – she had grown up with a father and brother who shouted a lot. But her anger at him grew and this time, there was anger at herself as well. He had liked making her feel comfortable and cared for; she had started regaining her smile and enjoying him uninhibitedly. All the way to Sunspear, they had been making progress. Now, they were almost back where they had started. If he had given voice to his dislike of the things that disturbed him in Dorne, they might have worked over them; if she had fully returned to herself earlier, she might have forced him to reveal his true emotions. But they were leaving now and it would be years before she saw her children again and she'd have to carry the memory of this uneasiness between them with her all the time. If only!

"I thought you did," she said. "And since I am the one who lost in this situation, I suggest that you stop yelling."

Her soft but firm tone took him by surprise and Elia had to admit that this was the first time she was being this direct. He gave her a long look, swallowed, said nothing. She turned back to the window. Everything in her rebelled against the idea that she should accept his awkward, unspoken apology when before, she always had. But this had been the war prize, not Elia of Dorne; the Queen she had chosen to be, not the Queen she was in her core; the woman who had feared that she had too much to lose when now, she knew that her children were safe. Robert might avoid them and make them and himself feel uncomfortable but he'd never do something to them. His hatred for Rhaegar had lost its edge and in his readiness to transfer it to Rhaegar's children – only by Elia, though – had more of a grudge that was not to his credit but it would not lead to murder anyway.

Even he had changed.

He had not grown up, though. He stole a look at her, looked away, then looked at her again. "I'm going to have a ride," he announced and Elia nodded.

"As you wish, my lord," she said, knowing that if she had asked him to stay, he would have, gladly. He was not a man for wheelhouses – he had chosen to travel this way for her sake, to try and win her over with his boyish charm. Elia, though, was still hurting too much and she knew in her bones, she knew that if she admitted defeat this time, their parts would be consolidated. She was no longer the queen that had accompanied Robert down this very road in the opposite direction – but he looked eager to make this new queen like him as well. Magdeen gave her a look of warning that Elia did not shrug away. It was time to see if Robert was indeed taken with her, as Magdeen had claimed, or just her outer shell, for her core was no different. And there was only one way to find out.

Despite everything, the thought of him being taken with her still sent a rush of heat through her body, starting from the place where the sweetest of all thrills would arise…

Robert roared an order to the outriders; moments later, his stallion was brought alongside the wheelhouse. He threw the door open and one of Elia's ladies shrieked but had the presence of mind – and muscles – to keep it open against the wind. Robert swing himself in the saddle without breaking stride and saved the ladies from the wind by closing the door.

Such a hardship a wheelhouse was for him! Just like it was for the boys. He lifted Edric from his pony and showed him to Elia through the window cut in the door. She shook her head. Her son would go out like a candle the moment he sat down but for now, he was happy. And she could not protect him by making him weak. Even little Alric protested loudly as soon as he saw the interior of the wheelhouse, even with his mother in it; Elia smiled as Robert took him from Arthur Dayne's hands and put him on his own mount. Only time would tell how her boys would turn out but for now, they were Robert's sons through and through. Her smile wavered. She felt like the loneliest human being under the sun.

"Would you take me to the Vale?" she asked spontaneously the next time he opened the door to hand her a sleeping little boy. "I want to see the realm. I always have."

He whistled. "Well, well, I didn't know I have married a globetrotter!" he said, his eyes inviting her to return his jape, make it clear that she was willing to overlook his transgression, as big as it was. I've married a boy, Elia thought again but this time, her bitterness was not as poisonous at it had been at Sunspear. It just carried all the weariness of a constant.

Y _ou want to see land that shaped me, even more than the stormslands did?_ She read the question in his eyes and as disappointed and fuming at him as she was, she could not put an end to his hope. Her stupid heart had never allowed her to reject the plea of those who were truly sorry. At the end, she had even forgiven Rhaegar.

The first time around.

Not that she had had much of a choice.

No more than she did now.

She smiled and he grinned back, reading her answer in her silence.

The sand in the sandglass started measuring the time till the _if_ would go away.

 


End file.
